My blog is about security and optimization of Windows system, it will be useful to beginners who needs informations to secure & optimize their system or more advanced users who need to know more about security softwares.

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Thursday, January 24, 2013

[Review] Rollback RX Pro

The Good :

- Easy to use
- allow you to reverse all changes made to your system (system crashes
after new soft/driver installation) and malwares issues (0-days attacks,
etc...)
- Compatible with security softwares (AVs/FW/Suites)
- unlike Virtualization system-wide software (Shadow defender, etc...), you can install softs than need a reboot
- Very fast snapshot creation
- Very quick snapshot restoration
- Low on resource's usage
- ability to defragment the snapshot for gaining HDD space
- can be launched during boot time

The Bad :

- Version 9.1 won't work on UEFI/GPT system
- Like any rollback system software, imaging backup soft are not compatible (Acronis, Paragon, Macrium, etc...)
- Defragmenting your system after installing RX is not recommended (Windows defrag, Puran, auslogic, etc..)
- must be installed BEFORE any virtualization system wide software.
- Not free

Rollback Rx is a pearl in protecting your PC, its main purpose is to
save a snapshot of your current system (or selected partition) and in
the case you have a system failure, infection, or just deleted something
important , you just need one click to restore it as if nothing
happened.

You will say " i have a Backup Image, why i should use that?"

My answer is simple :

How long you have to wait when doing a backup image of your system? 20, 30mn, 1 hour? then how long to restore it?
For me it took 10-15mn for just backup my 17.5gb system with Acronis, With Rollback, i need 1mn !

Also RX allows you to take multiple successive snapshots then delete the ones you don't need anymore.

Rollback sit on the top of your system, it create an "hidden partition"
where it stocks the snapshots. It is why imaging softwares are not
compatible since they don't recognize the hidden partition, and both
loads drivers on boot so you may have conflicts.

Tip: If you still need an
imaging backup software, i suggest you to use the boot CD version
instead of the installer one (most of them allow you to create it) so
you will avoid to install drivers that may conflict with RX, and the
boot CD will load before RX.

Tip 2 : i highly suggest to do a cleaning of your system, defragmentation, backup image BEFORE installing RX.

now go for a tour:

Main Tab

the home tab, here you will find the basic information about RX and your system, nothing very exciting here.

Instant Recovery

here is the place where you can restore your snapshots, it indicates the size, status, date of creation, and type of snapshot.

RX when, installed, create an "origin" snapshot called "Baseline" it
will be the source of all further snapshots and it is locked from
deletion by default.
On my screenshot you can observe i installed Shadow Defender (SD) just
after, the snapshot is a "user" type, means it is not locked by default
(but i locked it)

Recover

Here RX allow you to just recover some files from your past snapshots,
very useful when you just deleted by mistake your copy of an long time
consuming made report

Explore Snapshot[

With this you can explore the content of a snapshot; it will be mounted as a virtual drive.

Snapshot

This tab is almost similar to the "rollback system" one, but here you can lock/unlock snapshots and delete old ones.

Task Scheduler

The place for automate different tasks

Event Log
Just an event log

Tools and Settings
there you will have the tools and setting tabs.

Access Control
Here is just the panel when you can add a password to your snapshots.

Baseline Manager
There you can manage the baseline (original snapshot) or create a new one.

Snapshot Defragmenter
Here is a very useful tab, with time as any files, snapshot get fragmented, there you can defragment them (it is why i said earlier than
3rd party software (Puran, auslogic and co. are not recommended, because they will change the structure of your current system (in fact an active snapshot, and will make the next one bigger in size).

A while ago all my snapshots (saved + current) took around 8gb of space, after defragmenting them here, i regained 5gb.

Program Settings
3 tabs here:

- Program Appearance: just one thing, you can change the key for opening RX during the boot (useful on a laptop without the "Home" key.

- Advanced Setting : some settings to facilitate the use of RX

- Network Setting : just to remotely control RX

It is Finished ! :DFor a final note
Rollback RX is a very very useful tool that will save your life many times, if you can afford the price don't hesitate.

2 comments:

I agree Rollback RX is very useful indeed, its save me plenty of times.By the way you can backup and restore the C drive along with all your snapshots.Download SEAGATE DiscWizard or use Acronis True Image (they are basically the same thing)Under the Advanced menu options: